Who does not love Top Water Fishing? The strikes are explosive and ferocious!! Sometimes they will knock your bait clear out of the water! Today we are going to focus on something I have a lot of experience in. Top water fishing with bait fish imitations.
So whether you are focused on a shad spawn, spawning bass, blueback herring or bream we will be focused on imitating some type of fish. When it comes to top water fishing I have found that based on the time of day, time of year and conditions the bite can change. You may have to switch up the size, cadence, or the bait all together. It is important to stay flexible and adjust. When I go fishing and I know it is the time of year for topwater I go out armed with a walk the dog style bait like a River to Sea Rover or the old school Heddon Super Spook. One thing I like to do is change my hooks out on these baits to the Mustad KVD triple grip hooks.
These are stronger hooks and the one that come standard with these particular baits are weak and will bend after a couple of fish.
My second top water (I always have two tied on) will usually be a River to sea Whopper Plopper. No need to change the hooks on these baits because they are AWESOME!!
The color depends on the region. I usually feel that you can’t go wrong with colors that have white on the belly of the bait on cloudy days. On sunny days something shiny like chrome or even more translucent will work a little better.
At every spot I go to until I figure the bite out for that day I will throw both of my top waters and I won’t leave until I throw a sub surface bait. It is almost always a white or chrome Sebile Magic Swimmer.
Whenever I am on a school of fish on my home lake of Lanier I will usually start catching them on top water and as soon as the bite slows I will pick up my Sebile and almost always hook up again. I also like to change the hooks out on this bait as well. Some days the fish don’t want to come up on top and I will almost always exclusively throw the Sebile. Like I said in the beginning it is important to experiment with cadence and follow up baits and sizes to figure out what the fish want on a particular day.
Just because it is June or early fall does not mean you can force the top water bite. Conditions play a big part into this bite. If the water is flat calm and you have blue bird skies you may struggle a little to get this bite going. The morning might be good and late afternoon but you have to adjust during the middle of the day. Now if the conditions are over cast and you have a 5-10 mph wind it should be on like Donkey Kong.
So you might be asking yourself “WHERE do I throw this bait?“. If I am fishing during the summer on my home lake of Lanier I am going to go to humps and points with my secret brush piles on them. Spotted Bass will load up on these brush piles in big schools and you can have a blast. If I go to lake Guntersville I will fish the Shad style imitations over Grass that has not reached the surface yet. Remember we are only talking about Bait Fish imitations and not the Frog that Guntersville is famous for. I have had great success in the summer and fall with the above baits on Lake Guntersville.
Ok now we know where to go, what to use and it’s time to talk about set ups. In clear lakes you can’t go wrong with braid with a 10-12lb monofilament leader line tied with a double uni knot to connect the lines. I prefer the clear line made by trilene found here. If I am fishing on a Lake like Guntersville, the St. Johns river, or Lake Okeechobee that I will fish Braid Straight to my Lure. The line is not as easy for the fish to see and I also want to be able to pull these fish out of the grass. I will use a 7 foot or a little more Medium Heavy with a Fast action tip for the lakes with grass. If I am fishing in a clear lake like Lake St. Clair or Lake Lanier I will go down to a 7 foot with a medium action and fast action tip (see 10 tips below for more on this). I love to use a High speed reel for this and I absolutely love the Quantum reels for durability, cast-ability, and distance.
Hopefully I shed a little light on how to fish Top water Baitfish style baits. I realize I use a lot of affiliate links in my Blog Post’s but I feel it is good to have examples of what exactly I am talking about if I you are not familiar with the products.
Here are 10 Top water Tips in review:
- Always use Mono or braid because they both Float. Your bait will not run right with Fluorocarbon.
- No need to set the hook with these baits. There are plenty of treble hooks. Dont yank on the first blow up and always keep working the bait because they may miss three or four times before they get it.
- Switch up baits, cadences (slow and fast) and colors until you find what they want that day.
- BE CAREFUL. Use pliers to get hooks out. I have buried hooks in my hand twice unhooking top water caught fish. This device works great for getting hooks out also.
- If you do get hooked pull it out with the braided fishing line trick. It is painless and no need to ruin a day of fishing going to hospital.
- Change your hooks on these baits if they are of low quality.
- Oil your reels before throwing these baits and you will cast SOOOOooooo much further. Take the side off and oil all the metal components and gears.
- Look at the weight of the bait and the weight that your rod recommends and do NOT exceed that or you may snap your rod when casting these bigger baits like spooks.
- If the fish blows up or follows the bait to the bait kneel down and you will get hit right at the boat. The fish can see you Trust me!!
- Always have follow up baits to catch all the fish at one spot. Start with a top water, than a senile, and maybe end with a fluke. They get tired of seeing the same thing. When you find the mega schools and a bite slows then switch it up!!!
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